This post is a follow up to the Mount vision vs. Blur discusion. So if you were following along here is an update on the build.

Well the bike is finally built up and looks and feels darn good if I say so myself (See pics). I have not yet given a serious test ride as it took all day to get it built up. I will post more info later on how it functions on the trail.

Some notes on the build up: Note that marins have long head tubes so make sure that you have enough room on your fork. I had to revert back to an old stem with a lower profile, which actully works great with the frame geometry when alls set an done.

The derailer runs will need a custom run of cables as a standard cable kit does not work (XTR kits cables were to short).

I used a Chris King headset on this bike, I figured I should give it a shot due to all the positive reviews. Granted the thing was really really pricy, but the darn thing is smooth due to the high tolerences and seald bearings. Its also a nice clean install and the things looks good too. Definetly hard to justify the cost because you can get a $30 headset that works, but honestly I dont think I will buy anything but at king again (this one should last 10-15 years too).

By the way since this is the what bike to buy area I would like to note that if you can still find one the 04 Mount Vision frame can be had for $600. For the money I dont think you can get a better deal on very good xc/trail bike. I base this on past experince with an old marin single piviot, and quaility and a feel of the new frame thus far.

Cheers

By the way since this is the what bike to buy area I would like to note that if you can still find one the 04 Mount Vision frame can be had for $600. For the money I dont think you can get a better deal on very good xc/trail bike. I base this on past experince with an old marin single piviot, and quaility and a feel of the new frame thus far.

Cheers

Is that a 5" fork? Wow, that headtube is very long indeed. Bike looks nice though!!

Is that a 5" fork? Wow, that headtube is very long indeed. Bike looks nice though!!
Why a 5 inch fork with 3.5 inches of rear travel? Maybe it's a photo distortion. If it is 5 inches you must not need to climb much. I wouldn't go with more than 4 inch fork on the Mt Vision, and an 80mm might be the best balance for this XC racer and light weight trail bike.

- ray

Nice build, Joel. I've been following your Blur vs. Mt. Vision thread.

The monocoque Marin frames are nice art. For my own curiousity I counted 15 feet of welds on my wife's single pivot 15" Mount Vision. That's a whole lot of handiwork, and a ton more impressive than any bike I've ever owned.

Like yours, her's I built up from a bare frame. To say the Mount Vision makes her a better rider would only be a part truth, since she came off of a size too large low-end hardtail. But she loves the bike and really has made some notable gains (especially in attidude) in the 18 months she's owned it.

And good news for me because I haven't had to lay a finger on the frame, the rear shock rarely needs attention, and she's never once complained the bike felt flexy or squishy or weird compared to her hardtail (something I assumed would be an absolute certainty in the transition from a hardtail).

I am looking forward to reading your ride reports given your experience with their single pivot design.

<img src="http://gallery.consumerreview.com/webcrossing/images/mvsh.jpg">

mountain bike action reveiwed the 2005 mount vision pro in the dec issue
weighs in at 24.4 pounds
cost $4499

Sorry this is going to be long but I hope there is some good info here:

Wow, impressions after first ride were great. I will qualify all of the following statements with the fact that my last bike had really seen better days, so just about anything new was going to be a huge improvement. My last bike was a diamondback X2 that served nicely for a long time, but the back end had enough flex to make it feel unsafe, the shock was a coil over with no dampening control and steering was slow at best, oh yeah and the darn thing was really heavy (almost 8 lb frame).

Some notes:

1)yep it is a 4.75 inch fork (Yeah I know too much), my old bike was more built up for the AZ trails where I am formally from. I am working with my bike shop to adjust it down to 4 inches for the MO trails. It is a 04 Marzocchi MX comp, unfortunately marzocchi does not make a travel reduction springs for 04, they say there is some method to reduce travel by playing with the damping rods but my bike shop has talked to a bunch of Marzocchi gurus and no one has figured it out yet. If anyone has any suggestions let me know.

2) 15 ft of welds wow, the welds are all done by robot I believe thus the perfection. I like the speed hub looks nice, always been curious about them, just wish they weighed less.

3) yeah, that 05 mount vision pro is nice and pricey. With the sweet deal on the frame (same as the pro )I have only about 1800 into mine and think it is just about as good as the pro, with a little bit more weight, but its probably more durable.

My First Ride Review

The first thing I noticed was that the steering was excellent (actually the first thing I noticed was that my seat was set about and inch to high and I about did a superman over the front handles bars on a 3 foot jump), I really picked up the pace through the windy single track, the bike really felt great at speed. The bike has no bob under seated pedaling and standings sprints are pretty solid too! This is one are where this design defiantly outshines the old Marin single pivot (Keep in mind that the old Marin was almost five years ago and so the comparisons to it will be tough, it was one before they went to the monocoque tubing stuff)

Also note that I was getting pretty much full travel out of the shock and did not feel that the bike was under sprung for xc and most normal trail riding. I forget why that one post was saying it was only 3.5, I don't know if i would trust measurements just pushing the shock through the travel and measuring with a ruler. The travel was awesome over the little stuff and handled the bigger stuff with out much complaint. There were points over some whop-d-dos that the bike would kick back a little. Some small adjustments on the damping pretty much fixed that issue however. I probably have a more adjusting to do, but it feels darn good right now so I don't want to play with it too much.

This is the fist time in a while where there was never a situation where I felt like the bike was holding me back, it was just me and my legs. I think this would be a great bike for someone who wants trail ride most of the time and race 3-8 times a year and can only have one bike like most of us. I think this could also be a great bike for some one who wants to race a lot with a little different build than what I have. My build is a little more beefy to take an everyday beating. My build weighs in right around 26lbs, and with lighter wheels and fork easily could drop 1.8 lbs. This is probably also going to be a great 12/24 hour bike and adventure race bike which is what I plan to do with it in addition to everyday ridding. Hope this helps, I will post more as I ride, I just wish it didn't get dark so darn early so I could ride more.

Oh yeah almost forgot:
1) bottom bracket height awesome rolls over everything!
2)The front derailleur adjustment screws are darn hard too reach, its a pain in the butt to adjust, I need to find like and inch long screw driver
3) And I have not tried using any of the bottle mounts yet.

Cheers

This post is a follow up to the Mount vision vs. Blur discusion. So if you were following along here is an update on the build.

Well the bike is finally built up and looks and feels darn good if I say so myself (See pics). I have not yet given a serious test ride as it took all day to get it built up. I will post more info later on how it functions on the trail.

Some notes on the build up: Note that marins have long head tubes so make sure that you have enough room on your fork. I had to revert back to an old stem with a lower profile, which actully works great with the frame geometry when alls set an done.

The derailer runs will need a custom run of cables as a standard cable kit does not work (XTR kits cables were to short).

I used a Chris King headset on this bike, I figured I should give it a shot due to all the positive reviews. Granted the thing was really really pricy, but the darn thing is smooth due to the high tolerences and seald bearings. Its also a nice clean install and the things looks good too. Definetly hard to justify the cost because you can get a $30 headset that works, but honestly I dont think I will buy anything but at king again (this one should last 10-15 years too).


Bike looks totally badass dude. I like Marin bikes a lot, and that one looks to be mighty sweet...

Bike looks totally badass dude. I like Marin bikes a lot, and that one looks to be mighty sweet...

Thanks a lot, it rides like it looks.

Did anyone see that adreniline bikes now has the Attack Trail frame on sale for $750. If the mount vision does not have enough travel the Attack is pretty much the same bike with travel adjustable from 4-6 inches with no tools. They also still may have the mount vision for 600, it is still listed onthe website, but I have heard they may be out.

To shorten your marzzochi, you should be able to use springs from a shorter Marzocchi fork and stack a section of PVC (plastic) pipe of the same diameter with each negative (top-out spring).

You'll have the quicker handling and easier climbing with a 100mm fork.

I really like the Marin designs too and am seriously considering getting the Attack Trail frame or full bike. I've demoed one and it is amazing and very adjustable in handling and travel. The '05 frame is more reinforced at the head tube and uses an RP3 instead of a Float-R (non-propedal) in '04, but otherwise the same in spec. The Marin designs are some of the very few most advanced designs and don't need platform shocks to pedal efficently.

Someone posted a few weeks ago they had found a Risse shock with the same i2i as the stock Float on the Mt. Vision but with an extra .25 inch of stroke. He measured the travel at 4.25 with the longer stroke shock. I figured the travel with the stock shock was under 4 inches since it has a near 2.5/1 travel to shock stroke rate. And having demoed the Mount Vision myself it does feel shorter in travel than my Tracer which I've carefully measured with 3.75 - 4 inch travel depending on wheelbase adjustment settings. Usable travel is of course a little less than measured travel too.

- ray

Thanks for the advice on the zocchi travel adjustment I will have to try that if I cant figure out the proper way to adjust the travel. Supposedly the 120 and 105 forks are exactly the same and there is a way to internal adjust it from one to the other with no additional springs or spaces. That is one of the reasons that I bought this fork in the 120, I figure when the day came to get a new frame it was going down to 105. Zocchi wants me to talk to a dealer but unfortunately no one seems to know how to do it. One shop had one apart the other day and could not figure it out either.

I am kind of curious about the rear travel, like I said I thought it felt fine, I am not going to say that it felt like long travel down hill bike or anything, but the bike seemed to use its travel very efficiently (3.75, 4 or whatever it really is) and never bottomed out. Granted the trail that I rode was just good old fast single track xc stuff with no extreme drops or super techy downs.

On a vpp type of design you can not assume a constant ratio of wheel travel to shock travel like on a sigle pivot. I may see if I still have my old Nastran software from college and try to model the linkage and get an official theoretical travel. I am willing to bet it is darn close to 4 inches, I know that actual travel tends to be slightly less, but I assume that applies to most bikes and not just the Marin.

I should mention that I have not really ridden a lot of the new suspension designs other than the NRS (which I really did not like because it just was not active enough over small stuff) so I am sure there could be better or at least different designs out there. For the money and my taste initial impressions are solid, it does what I want a bike to do. I will be interested to see how it feels as I settle in to the new ride.

Thanks for the advice on the zocchi travel adjustment I will have to try that if I cant figure out the proper way to adjust the travel. Supposedly the 120 and 105 forks are exactly the same and there is a way to internal adjust it from one to the other with no additional springs or spaces. That is one of the reasons that I bought this fork in the 120, I figure when the day came to get a new frame it was going down to 105. Zocchi wants me to talk to a dealer but unfortunately no one seems to know how to do it. One shop had one apart the other day and could not figure it out either.

I am kind of curious about the rear travel, like I said I thought it felt fine, I am not going to say that it felt like long travel down hill bike or anything, but the bike seemed to use its travel very efficiently (3.75, 4 or whatever it really is) and never bottomed out. Granted the trail that I rode was just good old fast single track xc stuff with no extreme drops or super techy downs.

On a vpp type of design you can not assume a constant ratio of wheel travel to shock travel like on a sigle pivot. I may see if I still have my old Nastran software from college and try to model the linkage and get an official theoretical travel. I am willing to bet it is darn close to 4 inches, I know that actual travel tends to be slightly less, but I assume that applies to most bikes and not just the Marin.

I should mention that I have not really ridden a lot of the new suspension designs other than the NRS (which I really did not like because it just was not active enough over small stuff) so I am sure there could be better or at least different designs out there. For the money and my taste initial impressions are solid, it does what I want a bike to do. I will be interested to see how it feels as I settle in to the new ride.

joelkamp, keep riding your bike with the Marz at full height. I swapped to a Manitou Black Platinum (90-120mm coilspring), from the original Float 100 RLC. There is a very small amount or difference in the handling, but I like it better (axle to crown increased about 25 mm over stock). With the Float, you had to pay attention all the time - the steering was very quick. The added height of the Manitou lets you relax a bit.

I also put the Risse on there. The Float RL was nice (check the reducers/bushings on yours to see if they are tight - mine felt better after I buffed them with some emery paper), but it would bring me up kind of sharp every so often. I can sit through more of the trail with the Risse. I measured travel on both shocks quite carefully. The Float will exhibit 4 inches of travel without air in it. I would guess that the shock, and the vpp suspension, are too progressive to allow full travel when aired up. Even if it doesn't get a full 4 inches while riding, it still is a superb feel.

I think that you are right about the leverage ratio - it does not seem to be a constant 2.8:1. I also figured it had to be the vpp links. Anyway you look at it, it is a great riding bike. I climb everything and feel good coming down.

Congratulations on the choice. I am sure you will love it.